On its 10th anniversary a study confirms:
The Vienna Design Week is demanding
and has a sustained effect for Vienna as
a design location. Good news for Director Lilli Hollein. Anyhow, the current
festival spoke for itself: once again, the
programme offered experimental design
beyond the usual novelty circus and
directed the attention to tradition-steeped Viennese craftsmanship. The festival
brings together traditional businesses
with international designers so that the
heritage is explored and ideas for the
future are found. And it works! Products
developed in such co-operations are
available. With “Stadtarbeit” the event
took the Vienna Design Week to the
street, where pottery or weaving was
done in the open in working class and
immigrant neighbourhoods. This worked,
too: locals and students got into conversation with one another while working.

been involved twice – in the very first edition of VDW and this last one, with Viennese
glass company J. & L. Lobmeyr, a festival
partner since its inception. As for the manufacturers, at least half of them were new and
based in the focus district; the other half was
comprised of the city’s most historic crafts
companies. All were thoughtfully selected by
Hollein herself.

The Way of the Cross

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2016 MARKS A DECADE OF VIENNA DESIGN WEEK
With this 10th edition, Vienna Design Week has confirmed its place on the
international design calendar. A week after its conclusion, DAMN° spoke
with co-founder and director Lilli Hollein about the nuts and bolts of creating a successful design festival in a city that is "not a design hotspot!”

“The results are too different to be able to
rank the projects”, Hollein says. “They are
successful for different reasons.” But she has
a few favourites. One of these is the project
by Canadian designer Philippe Malouin in
collaboration with 200-year-old Viennese
glass company J. & L. Lobmeyr, former suppliers to the court. Malouin created an installation as a metaphor for Lobmeyr’s production method, which is characterised by
time-intensity and low-quantity series. “Later
on, the installation was shown at the Victoria
and Albert museum in London, a huge success!”, effuses Hollein.

TEXT Aline Lara Rezende
PHOTOS Kollektiv Fischka

When asked about the uniqueness of Vienna
Design Week, Hollein at first highlights the
curatorial approach and non-commercial
purpose of the festival: most of the exhibited projects are actually commissioned by
VDW itself. She then informs us that VDW’s
involvement with the city is deep and impactful – each year it focuses on a different
district. And of course, there are the longlasting relationships forged because of VDW.
“We see the festival as an opportunity and
a platform for people to meet. We actively
connect people.”

Passionswege, arguably VDW’s core programme and perhaps the most internationally recognised, intends to do just that.
Through a careful curatorial process, Hollein selects and pairs traditional Viennese
craftsmen and historical manufacturers with
local and international emerging designers.
Every year between five and ten such pairings are formed to develop innovative projects free from commercial constraints (the
festival pays the designers’ fees and material
costs). The selection is new each time, with
the exception of Martino Gamper, who has

146

Passionswege stands for Passion’s Way. “It’s
a playful correlation with the Catholic idea
of passion as suffering, as in the Passion of
Christ”, Hollein explains. “A reminder of
design as a process, one that is sometimes
rewarded and sometimes implies suffering.
The idea behind this programme is to foster
experimentation, to focus on process, and to
see that the cooperation between designers
and craftsmen happens on equal grounds.
This is an opportunity for designers to learn
about traditional crafts and materials and for
entrepreneurs and craftsmen to get in touch
with the design scene in general, a novelty
for many of them, and actually understand
what design can do for them”, she adds.

2

Other projects were successful not for the object they generated but because of how much
the business was rewarded by the collabora-

6

5

tion. “We have a bunch of traditional entrepreneurs who are handing over to next generation.” Hollein mentions the pairing between
Polish design studio chmara.rosinke and Viennese manufacturer Wäscheflott, a household name in bespoke shirts, underwear,
and linens. “Through this collaboration, the
young woman taking over her parent’s legacy
developed a totally new awareness of her
own business”, Hollein says. The responses
she gets from the craftsmen themselves attest
to other success stories. “The craftsmen come
to me and say they were totally overwhelmed
by the number of people [who went to their
shop], and more-so by the questions they
were asking! Questions that sometimes they
didn’t even ask themselves. So they ended up
learning so much about their own business.”
She concludes with a smile, “And these are
things that last!”
If design is about collaboration, then we
know this is part of the equation that made
Vienna Design Week bloom and that ensures
it will remain on the international design calendar. To the next 10 years! Here, here! •
viennadesignweek.com

Vienna and design
Lilli Hollein curator and co-founder of the Vienna Design Week recounts which is the method behind it,
which the goals and her idea of design.
Interviews / Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni

Author
Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni

Sections
Interviews, Design

Published
24 October 2016

Keywords
Lilli Hollein, Vienna Design Week, Vienna Design
Week 2016

Location
Vienna

Network
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In the last two decades, Vienna has become increasingly
international. Although Viennese traditions are jealously

preserved, younger generations have more opportunities now.
Among them is the Vienna Design Week, Austria’s largest design
festival. This past fall, it celebrated its tenth anniversary (30.09–
9.10.2016), saluting the city as a protagonist of the festival. We
spoke with its co-founder and director, Lilli Hollein, about her
work and aspirations.
WERBUNG
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Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni: This year marks the
tenth Vienna Design Week, a big celebration for the city and for
you as the festival’s director. Looking back, what have been the
major changes? Which are the goals that you have achieved and
the ones that you would like to achieve in the future?
Lilli Hollein: We started the festival with the wish to put
Vienna on the international design map, and it is now firmly
embedded there. The Design Week has managed to link the city to
an international audience. What has changed over the course of
the years is that we have become popular with the local audience.
We are becoming increasingly international; our audience is
becoming wider, and this is something we have always aspired to:
not only the international design crowd, but also average people
who want to have an idea of what design can be. We have a broad
way of seeing design. We have social design, urban mobility,
industrial design, visual communications, the crafts, and many
educational programmes; it is a curated event. We have always
wanted to be known as something Viennese, and I think we have
achieved that. We showcase new talents. We look to Eastern
Europe. We commission projects; we try to show projects never
seen anywhere before, thanks to the fact that we commissioned

Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni: Every year during the
Design Week, the focus-district changes, meaning that different
parts of the city can be discovered by citizens, visitors and design
experts alike. This year, the focus-district was Margareten, the 5th
district of Vienna, which used to be working-class. It then became
a centre for artisans, and today it is populated by creative
industries and businesses that produce locally. Like the focusdistrict, the festival’s headquarters changes location every year.
This year, it was in a neoclassical building, the former Bothe &
Hermann exhibition halls. How do you choose the focus-district
and the festival headquarters?
Lilli Hollein: We choose districts that are not design hot
spots. We go to places where we can raise the awareness that this
is also an interesting part of the city, worth being looked at. We
need space, like abandoned shops. For the headquarters, we need
1,000 square metres where we can have the opening, a place
where we can get the contract a year ahead, because we need that
for the planning. We look at the crafts in the district. We look for

craftspeople and manufacturers that are a little exotic, that have
an interesting material, and so forth. For instance, this year we
would have wanted to have a taxidermist but he didn’t agree
because he was afraid of the public. We are happy with the neon
and the piano maker, but a taxidermist is so exotic! This example
was to give you an idea that the research that we are doing for the
festival is quite extensive. Therefore, we look for the guest
country and the focus-district long in advance. We have already
discussed before this festival what we could do the next year.
Immediately after this festival, that takes off. We meet the people
responsible for the district, and the planners, who always work
with the districts and are very helpful. Certain districts come to
us, because they would like to be the focus-district. Up to now, we
have chosen it ourselves. The process of the guest country is the
same. We have had countries came to us, like France, which
really wanted to participate, or Hungary or Poland, but the Czech
Republic this year was our choice for its design quality, and it was
an excellent partner for our anniversary.

Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carbone: The Passionswege
section of the Vienna Design Week is a cornerstone –
international and Austrian designers work together with
Viennese production companies to reinterpret traditional
Austrian pieces. How did you come up with this idea? Is it a way
to preserve the heritage, the culture and the tradition of the city
and show it to the world?
Lilli Hollein: It interested me even before we started the
festival, because it is a characteristic of Vienna that we still have
local production everywhere in the city, not just glamorous

manufacturers like Lobmeyr and the Wiener Silber Manufactur. It
is great to work with people who are very design conscious
already, but I would say we have managed to help craftspeople
because they have developed in ways that they would have never
done without us. They have delved into contemporary times, into
new materials, with designers that they would have never met
otherwise. Passionswege is the result of our local production
culture. In today’s Austrian design scene, especially in Vienna,
we are aware of this huge cultural heritage, and it is quite
emancipated. There is a certain lightness and playfulness in how
people deal with this cultural heritage. I think the Passionswege
format is the way to introduce international designers to the
possibility of a place like that. At the same time, it is an
educational tool for the manufacturers and entrepreneurs in
general, who are still very often afraid to work with designers.
Actually, they think that it means a change of identity, which is so
untrue. If you work with the right designer, that person would
immediately decide for your DNA and work on the basis of this,
adding something new. That person would help you and
introduce you to contemporary ideas. People need to go through
this process to understand it, in many cases.
With the Passionswege, we are the commissioners; we
pay the designer’s fee. We even pay a fee for materials and stuff.
The project is basically financed by us. For this reason, designers
and manufacturers have equal rights, no one is commissioning
the other. This makes us different from many others crafts and
design initiatives that came up later. We do not only combine
traditional manufacturers with contemporary designers, but we
force innovation. They don’t necessarily have to make a product.
If they want to write a manifesto together, that is fine according to
the rules of Passionswege. Morag Myerscough did an installation.
The piece by Maxim Velcovsky that you see downstairs was
planned as an installation. It became a product because it was so
beautiful that the Wien Tourismus decided to sponsor it. That’s
the way we work.
I choose the couples and I think this is what we are really
good at. It is important to get the right people together. Before I
make the teams, I try to meet everyone in person to get an
estimation of temperament and personality. I would say that 96
per cent of the teams turn out to be excellent!

Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni: What is good design?
Lilli Hollein: It is something that has all the qualities that
design has to have. Besides functions and aesthetics, it is
something that touches me in a certain way. It is not necessarily
always an object. It is an emotional quality thing. It could be a
present from someone you love. It is something that has extra
quality. This is actually what I am looking for. I am looking for
things that make sense, that can be a design object that is almost
a piece of art, or a social design project, or a super-functional
kitchen tool.
Bruno Melis, Elisabetta Carboni: Your father, Hans
Hollein, was a great architect and you grew up in a stimulating
environment. How much has this influenced your career and life
choices?
Lilli Hollein: The things that surround you as a child will
always matter. It was and is an interesting world to grow up in.
Definitely, my architectural background has had an effect on my
life. I studied psychology for two years; I tried to stay away from
all art, architecture and design, but after the first year, I already
went to take evening classes at the University of Applied Arts.

After the second year, I started studying industrial design. It
influenced me because I decided very early not to become a
designer myself. While I was studying industrial design, I started
writing a weekly page for a daily newspaper and it became clear
to me that the educational approach of bringing people together,
telling about design, and surrendering to my enthusiasm is my
world.